Wow. We’re only one figure away from having the whole line announced. I don’t think anyone saw this coming in their wildest dreams a couple of years ago when the line started, nor that it would happen this quickly. Sure, Scott and the Four Horsemen are big Super Powers fans, but the red tape involved has held back revisiting this line for quite some time. Not to mention DC Direct and Hasbro not having the confidence to look at it when they’ve had the chance. So for all the crap I and others give Mattel, my hat is off to them BIG TIME. No matter how flawed some of the execution might be, I still will take it over not getting these figures. Same goes for the hassle of getting con exclusives. I’m going to guess we’ll see Samurai in either Wave 16 or 17. And then…the circle will be complete. Or will it?

After all, Kenner did plan on making a whole bunch more Super Powers figures before the line was axed. And they even sculpted a nice set of prototypes for the 4th wave, including Man-Bat, Silcon, Shockwave, Rocketman, El Dorado and Quadrex. While we only have Man-Bat out of that line-up (so far) in DC Universe Classics, we have gotten a lot of the characters that were presented in concept art. In fact, we have enough to complete a whole "imaginary wave", from a certain point of view. As shown below, Mattel has made nice versions of Man-Bat, John Stewart, Kid Flash, Blue Devil, The Wonder Twins, Clark Kent, Bizarro, Vigilante, Deathstroke, and Obsidian. I don’t doubt that Creeper and 70s Supergirl are too far behind. What I really would love to see are new versions of the other Kenner created characters, like Quadrex and Executioner. And now that we have Cyclotron and Golden Pharaoh, that goal doesn’t seem too far out of reach. More to come on this topic…

Would that wrap up the line then? Almost. While it’s true we do have versions of some of the same characters in DCUC, we do not have the Super Powers versions. I don’t think we’ll necessarily get new sculpts for Orion or Kalibak, but we could get repaints that would put them much closer to their earlier counterparts. And of course, we still do need a Dick Grayson college age Robin! How great would it be to get a new 5-pack of these guys below (minus Kalibak) with the new figure being that Robin? I put the pic below together using some customs from other places online and some photoshop tweaking. And I have to say that the idea of a SP colored Mr. Freeze didn’t really appeal to me until I saw Adventurevault’s awesome custom repaint. I want this figure NOW. Custom Robin is by Lesternessman (just incredible work), Penguin is by Rich (check out his other DCUC repaints), and Kalibak is by Tyke. I highly recommend checking out all the links above. Batman and Superman are just more color accurate, with brighter grays and blues than the production figures. In general, ALL of the DCUC figures have duller, less vibrant paint jobs than SP did, even when the paint masters have them. I don’t know how these get so dull in production, because when you see the prototypes at conventions they look fantastic. I really wish they’d ditch the darker oversprays so it didn’t look like Mr. Miracle has been mud wrestling.

So that’s about it. Once I actually have all of these in hand I’ll probably shoot that pic one more time with all of the figures at once, and put it on here poster sized. And now to work on getting all of these made in 4" scale…

AFi Editor-In-Chief Jason Geyer has been part of the online pop culture world for nearly 20 years, having founded some of the very first toy sites on the web including Raving Toy Maniac, ToyOtter, and now Action Figure Insider. Along the way he helped pioneer online coverage of industry events such as San Diego Comic Con, E3, Toy Fair, and CES. He is also a former toy designer who is now a marketing genius. If he does say so himself. And he does.

Jason, you said it all, man! We must be riding on the same wavelength. Only one figure left to go? I agree 100% on the superior colors that made the Super Powers figures so great. It’s the only thing holding back DCUC from matching Kenner’s coolness. And having 4” scale versions would be the proverbial icing on the cake! Wanting figures of Shockwave or Silicon might sound crazy to some collectors but I guess you gotta be a Super Powers fan to understand our eternal love of these guys. I will always be grateful to the 4H for making this happen! I’m keeping my fingers crossed for Bronze Age Dick Grayson Robin to turn up along with Samurai in the near future.

Yes, a brighter colored Superman is high on my lists of wants. I’m so tired of the darker colored, constipated Superman look. *sigh* I’d also love a new Clark Kent that is more proportionate. Collect and Connect figure? 😉

I agree this is awesome. I’d like to see them take the line in the directions Super Powers ALMOST did.
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1. Complete the cast of the Super Friends Super Powers Team:
– Black Vulcan
– Apache Chief
– El Dorado
– Rima the Jungle Girl
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2. Complete the Satellite Era Justice League. There is a Super Powers poster with this team on it:
– Zatanna in her George Perez costume.
– Elongated Man
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Otter! Hey, I hate to break it to you, but you’re slightly off here. The Tyr in the photo is a custom by the amazing Airmax! So, combined with Samurai, we’re still 2 figures away from a complete line-up (though I personally won’t consider it complete until we get a classic Robin). Still, we’re almost there!

Man, I’m with ya on the 4″ line idea. Unfortunately Mattel missed the boat on that when they made Infinite Heroes 3.75″. I’ll say it again: I would have forgiven the lack of accessories, poor paint apps, and funky molds to just be able to display the modern figures with their classic SP counterparts. Oh well…

nice post for Hasbro dcu classics with the four horse mans talent has wound up doing what most dc fans never thought would ever happen again a dc line that could be considered a worthy sucessor to super powers. hard to believe only one more figure is left to make and hasbro will have done the original thirty three.even though it takes them a while to go throw all the clearance and red tape for the okay to make the characters. not to mention who would ever think of seeing the wonder twins in plastic.

Well, they have done Black Lightning, Despero… they’d have a long way to go. Wally West, Hawkman of that era, Impulse, Zauriel, Huntress, Connor Hawke Green Arrow, MD Bright Designed Black Lightning, Hook Hand Aquaman, Parallax, Dr. Polaris and Zoom. Still a long way to go.

The pipe dream remains, the DCUC Super Powers team needs an IN-SCALE HALL OF JUSTICE PLAYSET. Never gonna happen though.

well, if Ron/AFP is right, then the recently revealed Validus CnC (16?) is leading to the rest of the 30th Century collection. Let’s hope they manage to finish more than Imra for the Legion Ladies!
(I’m pretty sure I made the list here of Legionnaires *I’d* like to see, with LoSH variants = LoSV characters, but I’ll take alt. costumes, too.)
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and hoping the Thom variant = Payton!

Well, if they do get to the Legion I hope they stay true to the SP ethic going on and give us the overlooked Cockrum 70s/80s charters like Wildfire, Dawnstar, Timberwolf, etc. Personally I’m tired of getting the original 4 over and over.

Great post and picture!
I’m a huge Super Powers fan and I still need so much a Black Vulcan figure, Samurai and a collect and connect Apache Chief figure. They should release as well Toyman, Mister Mxyzptlk, Poison Ivy, Parasite and Eldorado.
I would love to see Mr. Freeze, Scarecrow, Bizarro, Clark Kent and Brainiac robot in DCUC packages. I’m tired of Superman and Batman variants…